Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 3-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 3 and 5 each recite “the conductive portion” without antecedent basis. It is unclear if this is mean tot refer to “one of the at least two conductive portions” or “the at least two conductive portions”, etc. Claims 4-7 all ultimately depend from claim 3, thus rendering them indefinite for the same reason.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 11, and 12, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0114993 to Park (“Park”). Park discloses a battery module and vehicles comprising the same. Park at Abstract and paragraph [0055]. The module includes a housing body (141) forming a cavity in which a plurality of batteries (20) are housed. Each battery includes a pair of terminals (21 and 22) extending from the end of the battery towards the open end of the housing body (141). The battery module further includes a protecting member (50) at the opening of the housing body (141) corresponding the recited fixing assembly, the protecting member including terminal holes (56) in which the terminals (21 and 22) of the batteries are inserted. A bus bar (25) conductively connects the terminal of a first battery to the adjacent terminal of a second battery and is connected to those terminals by a first nut and a second nut, each of the first nut and second nut in threaded contact with its respective terminal to clamp the bus bar (25) against the protecting member (50). Nuts are unlabeled but shown clearly at Figures 2 and 3. The bus bar thus corresponds to the recited connection portion and the nuts to the at least two connection portions. The housing includes a cover (143) that seals the opening of the cavity with the protecting member (50), bus bar (25) and pair of nuts associated with the bus bar sitting between the battery cells in the cavity and the housing cover (143). Thus, the housing cover (143) is considered to correspond to the recited end cover.
The drawings of Park all show the opening of the cavity (and thus terminals of the battery) facing upward with the protecting member and cover located on a top side of the battery module. However, it is noted that the claim is to the battery module itself, which can be freely rotated in 3 dimensions such that terms such as “upward” and “downward” have relative meaning, but no objective reference such as in relation to gravity. Thus, because the battery shown in Park places all the pieces in the claimed special relationships when flipped 180 degrees, it is found to meet those limitations.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 3 and 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2006/0255764 to Cho (“Cho”). Regarding claim 3, Park is applied as described above. Although housing cover (143) of Park could be considered a second fixing plate, with the protecting member (50) corresponding to the first fixing plate, the housing cover (143) of Park does not fix the collecting assembly in a recess of the protection member (50), nor does it define the connection hole.
Cho addresses battery assemblies like those disclosed in Park that utilize a threaded nut to attach adjacent battery cells to one another via a bus bar, noting that such assembly makes replacing faulty batteries, etc., more complicated than it needs to be. Instead, Cho utilizes a cap structure (20) that includes circuitry for wiring the batteries up to one another as an alternative method making such repairs faster/easier. The cap structure includes an attachment part 21 placed similarly to Park’s protecting member (50), including insertion grooves (22 and 22’) for receiving the battery terminal posts. Internally mounted conductors (17 and 17’) are held with each insertion groove to electrically contact the inserted terminals and thus correspond to the recited at least two conductive portions. A wire (26) electrically connects the appropriate conductors (17/17’) for the appropriate circuit of the battery module. Protection member (27) is applied to the top surface of the attachment part (21) closing off the insertion grooves (22/22’) and ensuring the conductors (17/17’) and wires (26) are fixed in place. Thus, in order to make it easier to replace batteries in the module of Park, the person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of invention would have reason to modify the side edges of its protecting member (50) where the terminals are received to correspond to the attachment part (21), with associated conductors/wires, and the corresponding outer edges of the housing cover (143) of Park to correspond to those portions of the protective member (27) to hold the conductors (17/17’) and wires (26) in place thereby acting as the second fixing plate with the modified protecting member acting as the first fixing plate.
Regarding claim 4, the conductors (17/17’) are mounted in t-shaped slots, comprising a through hole with two grooves formed on the sides thereof facing towards the axis of the through hole. Cho at Figure 2.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8, 9, and 10 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. Park and Cho are silent regarding the recited sampling member.
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/WYATT P MCCONNELL/Examiner, Art Unit 1727
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